No Room for Favorites

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in James chapter 2 this evening. It’s good to see all of you here this evening. If you find yourself wondering during this message, why is he talking about this?

Well, number one, the answer usually is because it’s in God’s Word. But it may seem like a random topic to bring up. Just so you’re aware, this is the message I had prepared for last Sunday night.

And I bring it to you not because of any problem I know about with our church, other than I think we just need an occasional reminder about things like this, but it was designed to reinforce what I talked about last Sunday morning about the sanctity of life and God caring for everybody, regardless of their backgrounds, regardless of what we see in them of value, regardless of their ability to benefit us, God caring about everybody. And this message was intended to be brought last Sunday night to sort of reinforce this point. So you’ll get it tonight, not as a reinforcement, but I guess as a reminder of what we talked about.

But we’re going to be in James chapter 2. And, you know, I will say I know of a particular church, and I’m not going to name names or even tell you what city it’s in, But I know of a particular church that has a big outreach to kids in their community as far as they send out buses and collect them and they have programs for them and they try to teach them. But this particular church, I’ve heard from several people that when they pick up kids on the bus from certain parts of town, certain areas, that they do that on a different day of the week.

that they don’t want them around the church kids on Sunday, so they have children’s church on a different day of the week. And they may have other reasons for that, but that kind of bothered me. The idea, we don’t want these bus kids from this part of town to be with our kids.

We want to keep them separate. And I’ve been in churches as well before where I’ve heard people complaining about visitors or even members and the way they dressed or how they talked or how they looked. And I think we probably all have either experiences like that or we’ve heard stories like that, and it’s a shame.

And we all know instinctively that it shouldn’t be that way. But I’ve also seen the opposite of the case. I remember as a teenager, one Sunday in particular, in our fairly large church there in Moore, a man who was obviously a drifter walks in.

just at the very end of the song service, and walks in and walks halfway up an aisle and goes and sits in one of the sections. And he wasn’t disruptive or anything, but you could tell he was out of his element, that he’d never been there before, that he wasn’t necessarily comfortable with his surroundings. And I wondered how the people in the church were going to react.

Because, like I said, we’ve all heard those stories. And I remember somebody without any direction from the pulpit whatsoever, without being told to, one of the men from our church going and sitting with him and visiting with him afterwards. And the man was not there for money.

But I remember the man from our church, again, without being asked and without being told to, helping the man out to where he’d be able to buy food that day. And just showing him a little bit of love while he was in our midst, even though he was dirty. The man loved him and treated him like he was any other guest in our church.

And that’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s what James addresses here. You know, I just told you this was meant to reinforce the idea that God cares about us regardless of our background, regardless of our financial means, regardless of our characteristics, regardless of our abilities.

God cares about all of us. And the gospel is for everyone. James says here, he’s writing to believers in James chapter 2, starting in verse 1.

He says, my brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect to persons. Now, he’s not telling people don’t have faith in Jesus. He’s not telling the people don’t be Christians.

What he says is, don’t have faith in Jesus and be Christians with respect to persons. And I was fairly sure that I knew what this meant, but he goes on and explains it. And then if we look into the Greek words that he’s using here, we get a really clear picture of what he’s talking about here.

And he gives us an example. He gives, well, what I think is a hypothetical example. It could be that he’d heard stories.

We don’t know what church in particular he’s writing to or what groups of churches, what believers he’s writing to, but it’s possible that he’d heard a story. It’s also possible that he just knew this would become an issue. And he says in verse 2, For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile arraignment, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool.

Are you not then partial in yourselves, and have become judges of evil thoughts? So he lays out, again, what I think is possibly hypothetical or what he could have heard. Says, imagine two men coming into your church, into your assembly.

And remember, in that day, they didn’t have church buildings. They didn’t have purpose-built church buildings like this where we come once a week, twice a week to gather and worship. They met in people’s homes.

Or they met in the back room of somebody’s business somewhere. They met wherever they could find space. And so they said, imagine these two men come into your assembly, and one of them is just dressed to the nines.

I mean, he’s got on flashy jewelry and nice clothes, and you can tell he’s just dripping with M-U-N-N-Y, money. And so you usher him in and say, here, here’s a great seat. Sit right here.

You’re, you know, you’re close enough. You can see everything, but not so close that the preacher spits on you. You sit here.

You’re in a, you’re in a great spot. And then another man comes in and he’s wearing rags. And you can tell he doesn’t have money.

He’s not a person of influence and power. And he says, and James says, and you take him and you shuffle him into the back. You say, stand here or sit here under my footstool.

I don’t even have a frame of reference to understand why you would tell somebody to sit under your footstool. But it’s obvious here that he’s giving the example that you treat these people like they’re nothing when they come into your assembly. He said, are you then not partial to yourselves, in yourselves?

He says, can you really say that you’re impartial? And what he’s speaking to here is the idea that we as Christians, I think we would all agree with the statement, I think we would all agree with the statement that the gospel is for everyone. That Jesus, when he said, whosoever will, he meant that.

And there’s an invitation for everyone to come to Christ, regardless of their background. We would agree with that statement, but our actions and our attitudes don’t always bear that out. And so he says, are you not partial in yourself?

Can you really claim impartiality? And now you may be thinking tonight, well, I would never do that. I would never treat anybody.

I’ve never seen anybody treated that way in this church, to my knowledge. You know, somebody walks in. As a matter of fact, my first Wednesday night here as pastor, I think it was after I’d been here, a total of three Sundays spread over about a month and a half period.

My first Wednesday night, I walked in and LaBelle said, I’m so glad to see you not wearing a suit. I don’t know if you even remember that. I said, no, that’s just Sundays.

Nobody cared what anybody was wearing. You know, walking in in a suit on Sunday didn’t get me any special favors. And seeing people come in in their work clothes, they’re not treated badly.

So, you know, you may be sitting there saying, I would never treat somebody that way in this church. But as I was reading this and studying it, I became convicted in myself, maybe more about my behavior and my thoughts outside these four walls. It would be very difficult for me to be deliberately unkind to somebody.

And I’m not saying I’m a great, wonderful person, because sometimes I am unkind. Sometimes I am sharp in my tone. Sometimes I’m imperfect just like everybody else.

But the way my mama raised me, it would be difficult for me to just treat somebody badly on purpose. And yet I find myself, sometimes there are people or groups of people that I don’t pay as close attention to outside these four walls, maybe because of where they come from or how they look. And folks, we are probably all that way because of human nature.

And we may have different hang-ups. For some of us, it may be the social class they come from. For some people, it may be race.

For some people, it may be whether they have money. For some people, it may be whether we have things in common. I’ve seen people that I have tried very hard to build a relationship with just write me off because they assume we have nothing in common, so I’m worthless as a human being.

We all have different things that we look at and evaluate people and say, you’re worth something to me and you’re not. And like I said, it may be something different for each of us. And James addresses that and says, if you’re acting that way, especially if it’s taking place in your assembly, but if you’re acting that way, can you really say that you’re impartial?

Can you really say that you believe the gospel is for everybody? Because you’ve shown yourself to be partial. He says in verse 5, Hearken, my beloved brethren. Have not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he had promised to them that love him?

He said, hasn’t God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he’s promised? The gospel was first preached to the poor. The message of Christ’s coming was first heard among those who were least in society.

I’ve read some things over the last few months that make me question whether what I’ve taught about the shepherds at the time of Jesus’ birth may be exaggerated a little bit. that I’ve taught and I’ve heard several others teach, that they were treated like and considered to be just the scum of the earth in their day. There may be a slight exaggeration there.

But the point is they were poor. They certainly weren’t people who were haunting the halls of power there in Bethlehem. They were out in the fields with dirty, stinky sheep.

And that was their livelihood. And the very first ones to hear the message of the coming of Jesus Christ were the shepherds. Whether everybody thought that they were untouchables or not, the message of Jesus went first to the unimportant people.

And I’m thankful that that’s true because I consider myself pretty unimportant. Wednesday night, I talked to you about the marriage supper at Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine. We don’t know the names of the people who were getting married.

We know that they were from this little podunk town, not far from Nazareth. They were in the backwaters of the Roman Empire of the province of Judea. And they’re not named.

They were probably relatives of Jesus, probably on his mother’s side. The first miracle of Jesus’ public ministry was to help out a bunch of nobodies that history’s forgotten. And if you look at the Christian faith, and I don’t mean where entire country said, we’re converting our country to Christianity, you have to go to church now, you have to do this, or it was a political thing.

I’m talking about real, genuine Christianity, where people’s hearts were changed, where people gave up everything for Jesus Christ and to follow him. When you look at the history of Christianity, it really hasn’t, by and large, been the big, important, powerful, rich people. I mean, God can use anybody, but usually it’s been the poor.

It’s been the unimportant people. As I like to say, nobodies who serve the great sin body. And so he says here, hasn’t God chosen the poor?

Hasn’t God used the unimportant people? And you know what? There’s always somebody richer than us.

There’s always somebody to whom we’re the poor little people. No matter how many things we have in our house and how many zeros we have in our bank account. We’re all poor compared to somebody.

But he says, hasn’t he chosen, hasn’t he used the poor and the unimportant? And is God then powerless to use the people that we look at and say, eh, I’m not even going to notice or pay attention to you. But he says in verse 6, but you’ve despised the poor.

And again, I’m not telling you this tonight because I see a huge problem with this in our church, that people are mistreating others. But like I said, it’s a good reminder, especially as we go outside these four walls, that everybody has value because they are known and loved by the God who made them. He said, but you’ve despised the poor.

Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before their judgment seats. He says, you’re going around sucking up to the poor, sorry, to the rich, and yet they’re the ones who are sticking it to you. They’re the ones who are keeping you down.

They’re the ones, and this is not a class warfare message, but they’re the ones who, especially in this day, where you could buy and sell people, they’re the ones who are oppressing you, and yet you’ve despised the poor. And again, the point of this message tonight, not hate the rich. It’s not saying the rich are evil either, but it’s saying they were so after influence in their society and they were so desperate to get something liked or whatever the reason was, that they were catering to certain people over certain others and treating them like they had more value in the church because of what they wanted.

And these were the people who had troubled the church so much in the first place. Do they not blaspheme that wordy name by which you are called? And so some of the same people that they were catering to had been blaspheming the name of Jesus.

And quite honestly, their behavior brought dishonor to the name of Jesus. Now, what is going on just before this? If you look back at the last two verses of chapter 1, he talks about the difference between true and fake religion.

And if memory serves, I’ve preached on this in the last year. I don’t expect you to remember everything I said. But he talks about the difference between true and fake religion.

And he says, basically, there are some people who claim to be religious, but they can’t even control their tongues. Now, we all have our moments, don’t we? But they make a habit of not controlling their tongues.

He says, if you can’t even watch what you say, he says, don’t tell me about your religion. I’m paraphrasing all this, of course. I invite you to go back and look at it yourself.

And he goes in verse 27 to say, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows, the people who most need help, the people who are most vulnerable in our society. true religion is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. He said, you want to prove your faith in Jesus, go take care of these people.

Now that doesn’t mean that taking care of the fatherless and the widows, the widows and the orphans, but that somehow earns us God’s acceptance. But he said, that’s pretty good evidence that this change that we claim that Jesus has made in us is true. So he starts out before this passage by talking about putting our faith into practice, by going and taking comfort to the orphans and the widows, that we show our faith in Christ by, among other things that the Bible teaches, at least here, we show it by the way we treat those who are unable to do anything for us in return.

And then he goes on after this passage to talk to us about the difference between, Well, excuse me, to talk to us about this idea that it’s just a little sin. Because he tells them that this partiality, this respect of persons, this way that they were treating some people. And again, in their context, it was rich versus poor.

In our context, it may be something completely different. But this idea of treating some very well and treating others like they don’t matter, he said it was a sin. He told them not to do it.

And we see in verses 8, 9, and 10 later on, he talks about them doing well to love their neighbor as their selves. He says in verse 9, though, but if you have respect to persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors. Verse 10, for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he’s guilty of all.

So there’s this idea, too, that, well, I’m doing pretty good. That’s just a little thing over there. How I treat people, how I treat the poor in our church, that’s just a little thing.

And James says, uh-uh. If you keep the whole law, which, by the way, we can’t do, but if you keep the whole law and you only violate this one little part, you’re guilty of the whole thing. You haven’t kept the law.

So we can’t look at it as just a little sin. We’ve got to avoid an attitude of partiality with our Christian faith because it is a sin. We’ve got to avoid an attitude of partiality.

This word here that I’ve mentioned, this phrase, Perspective Persons. Comes from the Greek word prosilepsia. Which means.

I’m not sure you spell that. I don’t expect you to remember the Greek word. I studied it all week.

And I had to look down again. And be reminded of what it was. The word means discrimination.

And I know that probably none of us would. Usher the rich man into the best seats. And make the poor guy stand in the back.

But sometimes in our daily walk. We treat others like they don’t matter. for one reason or another.

And this word comes from the Greek word that means discrimination. And that’s exactly what it is. It’s treating some people like they matter in the kingdom of God and others like they don’t.

And it’s sin. And we might look at it and say it’s a little sin. At least I didn’t kill anybody.

I didn’t get drunk. I didn’t have an affair. I’m glad you didn’t do any of those things, but this is still a sin and we’ve got to stop it.

I’ve got to work on this. I’m telling you in all honesty tonight, I need to work on this and do better. Because there aren’t two classes where some people matter in the kingdom of God and others don’t.

He calls it a sin, calls it a transgression of the law, because this attitude of partiality leads to mistreatment of others. It leads us to treat others differently. And I’ve seen this before in church, and it had nothing to do with income, and it had nothing to do with race, but I’ve seen where one group didn’t like another group in the church.

That’s a recipe for disaster if you don’t get that under control. And it started out with just, we don’t like you. And it was just an attitude.

And then it broke out into open mistreatment of one another. And then that lovely incident that I’ve referred to several times where somebody took a swing at somebody else at business meeting. Thank God, over who got the mail.

Thank God I’ve not seen anything like that here. We’re going to have to come to Jesus meeting if I ever see anything like that here. But it all started with an attitude of partiality.

You’re on my side, so you matter. And you’re not on my side, so you don’t matter. And it starts with an attitude of the heart, but it ends in the mistreatment of others.

And you know what? There’s nothing about it that honors the name of Jesus. There’s nothing about it that honors the sacrifice that he came to make.

Because I don’t recall anything in the Bible that says, if you’re rich, Jesus died for you. Or you’re poor, so Jesus died for you. There’s of salvation.

It says this applies to whites only or to blacks only. That this applies only to Americans. That this applies only to, you fill in the blanks with whatever, however we like to divide people out.

Oh, it says to as many as received him, gave he the power to be called the sons of God. God has a willingness to take any of us, rich or poor, black, white, Hispanic, Indian, whatever, Americans, foreigners, liberal, conservative. There’s a willingness for God to take all of us and look at us as sinners.

Look at us as sinners that he loves nonetheless and that he sent his son to die for. And because of what Jesus did, he’s willing to welcome us into the kingdom, not just as his servants, but as his children. And because God is love, we all matter to him.

And because we all matter to him, because everyone matters to him, everybody should matter to us as well. We’ve got to avoid partiality. We’ve got to avoid favoritism and dividing people up into groups in our thoughts and saying, this person, this group is worth my time or this one’s not.

Everybody we see. Every person you see this coming week. From your best friend to that lady who just grates on your nerves at the grocery store.

Everybody you see is somebody that Jesus died for. and somebody to whom the gospel is available. The gospel is for everybody.

God’s love is for everybody who will receive it through Jesus Christ. And that’s got to be the message and the mission of the church, to show God’s love to everyone without respective persons, because that’s what we’re commanded to do.